Mapping the Rift
by maroonraspberry
Summary: Set post-series 2. OC. With an unusual thunderstorm over Cardiff, a strange message comes through The Rift, leading the team to discover something thought lost forever.
1. Awake & Ouch

Awake

The nightmares were why Jack almost never got a decent night's sleep. Recently, of course, his nights were filled with visions of Gray, Owen, and Tosh, dying over and over in his arms, and over and over again he would wake-up in a cold sweat, sometimes yelling, sometimes not. This time, though, it was different. In the middle of his recurring dream, the dream he had been having night after night for months, there was something new. A voice, first a whisper, then a cry for help, calling his name. A voice he knew, somehow distant. And her eyes, questioning him, accusing. He hadn't protected her, he'd let her go when he could have saved her. Now, she was in his head, in his dream.

"_Jack_..._Jack..._help me...JACK!"

And Jack woke, sweating, cold, and alone in the dark, with his memories making him colder.

Ouch

It hurt. Bad.

_Bad__**ly**__. _Grammar.

Run. Quickly.

Tentatively, she touched the back of her head. A big sticky dress

_**Mess**_**.**

Blood. Pain. Double-vision -

Where was she? There were muffled sirens and what sounded like a woman's voice reciting numbers, and there seemed to be blood in her ears too, she couldn't hear clearly. She had a sudden thought that she had been running, that she should still _be_ running from ... from ... _something_. She couldn't remember what, though. Someone must have hit her for that blood...

Her arm hurt. Someone had...injected her? That was it -

As her vision cleared, she managed to stumble along, leaning for support against a brick wall that seemed to be curved. It was so dark here. Was it night?

...That was it, they'd injected her, so she couldn't -

Her vision blurred again and in the darkness as she squeezed her eyes, she heard screams, growls, gunfire. She tried opening them again but all she could see was darkness. Another scream, and someone yelled her name, but somehow she knew she had to leave, to go, to ignore the voice crying out for her.

And she cried out for another...

Get out of this place, because it's filled with death.

The buzzing on her wristband juddered, stopped, then came back to life, stronger, so hot it burnt her skin. Things began to brush past her as she ran. Large mouths filled with pointed teeth and strange, leathery, balding heads.

- Running again.

She knew their names but she couldn't think. She was forgetting everything so quickly. So she just ran. The woman's voice was nearing the end of her countdown.

"_**Seven, six...**__" _The girl was becoming faint and wanted to be sick as she pushed herself further, but she could see the familiar gold and red light, knew she hadn't managed to escape her fate.

And then she felt herself being pulled forwards into the light, and into her future.

"_**Three, two, one.**_

_**Transport initiated."**_


	2. Return

Return

As Gwen walked along the Bay with her husband after a surprisingly quiet, uneventful, and well..._nice_ dinner, she knew the peace couldn't last. She'd already had more than her fair share of nights out with Rhys this month, and she was due a big helping of weird interrupting the calm.

She supposed this was the calm _after_ the storm, but she tried not to think about that, having spent the past few months trying not to break down and cry every time she thought of her friend's deaths. With the fact that both hers and Ianto's workload had shot up, doing tasks they only vaguely understood, meant Gwen had had hardly any time to herself to reflect. She knew they couldn't continue as they were, the three of them, and that Jack would, sooner rather than later, hire others to become part of his team, but she couldn't imagine anyone else sitting at those desks, laughing, _arguing_, or drinking Ianto's coffee at 5.30 in the morning. She wondered if loss affected you less once you had been around 1,000-plus years, or if it still hurt each time someone died. How many more times would Jack have to hire new people, new team-members, and watch them die infront of his eyes, knowing he would never have to suffer that fate.

"You alright, Gwen?" She started, realising she had been silent for the last few minutes, pondering, and Rhys had just asked her something.

"Sorry, Rhys, in a world on my own, there. What did you say?"

"I was thinking, we-"

A loud rumble of thunder rolled from behind them inland.

"Ah great," Rhys exclaimed. "So that'll be rain, then. Mind getting soaked or shall we splash out on a taxi home?" But Gwen wasn't beside him anymore. He turned, and saw her staring at the sky, and she had that look. The look that meant Rhys knew in the pit of his stomach that somehow this evening was going to be ruined by something more than a spot of badly-timed precipitation.

"I don't think it's going to rain, Rhys. Look at the sky."

He did, and saw it was clear; the stars twinkling down on them both.

Not a raincloud in sight.

"Then...Gwen, what _was_ that?" he asked, dreading the answer, almost certain in the knowledge that at some point this would involve Torchwood.

"I don't know." Another rumble, this time louder, and everyone around them covered their ears as the sound rolled over their heads. It was then that Gwen's phone rang, and she knew before she even looked at the caller ident. who it would be.

"Gwen, need you here, we've got a big problem!" Jack yelled over the phone.

"I'll be there now," she replied, threw an apologetic look at Rhys, who, though mildly pissed-off, smiled, albeit briefly, and motioned for her to go. She smiled back then ran back down the way they had just come and into the main entrance of the Hub.

"What's going on? What's making that noise?" Gwen asked as the rolling door that was the entrance to the Hub opened and she ran through.

"Rift opening," Jack explained. "But it doesn't look 'normal'; it's like something's forcing it open against it's will."

"So that noise..?" Gwen prompted.

"-Is the sound of the Rift cracking," he finished, moving towards the garage and the SUV. They all quickly got in, Jack driving, and sped off into the night.

"Rift opening," Jack said, sounding more than a little annoyed. "But we've pinpointed it's location, we'll be there in a minute, " he continued, swerving to avoid a couple of cars as he sped across a roundabout. "Anything new for me, Ianto?"

"The readings are all over the shop. It's definitely the Rift, but it's nothing like the readings I've ever seen from it before." Another rumble of 'thunder' overhead, and the spike on the chart Ianto was watching spiked off the scale. Ianto switched to a screen showing a map of the city, with the opening pinpointed on it. Then there was another. And another.

"Jack, the Rift- It's splintering. There's openings appearing all over the city." The captain cursed.

Then a beeping sound.

"What's that?" Gwen asked, pulling her screen infront of her so she didn't have to keep cricking her neck at Ianto's. "What the..." she trailed off.

"People speak to me, what's happening?" Jack yelled at them. Ianto looked at Jack in the rear-view mirror.

"I'm...I'm getting a message through the Rift. Listen," hen tapped a button on the keyboard. Suddenly the car was filled with a serene woman's voice, the same used by the Institute, reciting words that appeared on both the screens.

**INCOMING SIGNAL**

**IDENT RECEIVED...**

**VERIFIED**

**SIGNAL RECEIVED FROM **

**TORCHWOOD FOUR**

There was silence in the SUV.

"Jack?" Ianto prompted.

"Check it," he said bluntly. Ianto began tapping away on the keyboard.

"But...Torchwood Four. They're lost, aren't they?"

"They were," Ianto replied. Again the voice rang out.

**SIGNAL VERIFIED**

**BROADCASTING ON EMERGENCY FREQUENCY **

**TORCHWOOD FOUR HAS INITIATED PROTOCOL ONE**

**NODES ACTIVATED**

**VERIFICATION RECEIVED **

**AUTHORISATION ALPHA ALPHA DELTA 335/CHERRY**

**TRANSPORTING IN...**

**40...39...38...37...**

"Protocol One? They've opened the Rift?"

"That's...quite bad," Ianto agreed.

"We're here," Jack said, ignoring the others comments as he swerved round a corner and into a dark street in a new-build housing-estate.

At the other end of the street, the opening could clearly be seen, the familiar gold and red energy trails and particles of a controlled Rift opening swirling and streaming from it's axis, but this time it was also punctuated by strands of blue-grey that crackled through it like an otherworldly lightning , coinciding with the ominous rumblings that continued above them.

But nothing seemed to be coming through. Then Gwen noticed by the side of the opening, Weevils were standing.

"Great," Jack said, apparently noting their presence, too. But they seemed more bothered by the opening than the presence of Torchwood, raising their heads and making their strange cry as if the opening caused them pain, before running into the night down a side-street. One even made a dash past them, and it was only at these close-quarters that they could see watery blood flowing out of it's ears and nostrils, it's skin even more wrinked than usual and hanging off it.

"What's happened to them? Did they come through?" Gwen asked.

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Jack replied. "And I'm beginning to get bored of waiting."

More blue energy fizzed across the opening. Ianto looked at a monitor in his hand.

"Another energy surge. I'm taking a guess here, but I think either something big...something really big is going to come through, or the Universe is about to implode and we're all about to die...Quite possibly both."

And something did. A small black object was propelled through the Rift and hit Jack square in the middle of his forehead before falling to the floor, leaving a nasty gash behind that, predictably, quickly healed itself, leaving a trail of blood that Jack quickly wiped away. He and Gwen both looked at Ianto who shrugged.

"That's _quite_ big," he excused.

"What is that?" Gwen asked, trying to pick up the thing that had hit Jack...and failing. The octagonal block had sealed itself to the floor and was now bleeping furiously.

"Well, it doesn't look like it's going to explode. I think," Jack conjectured.

"Maybe it's got something to do with that," Ianto said, pointing at the Rift.

Something else was materialising. It seemed not to want to come through, but was being pulled, or pushed, by an invisible force. First a hand, then gradually the arm, shoulder, then the rest of the body of a young woman, seeming to strain against the unseen force, the glow of the Rift making her eyes seem like hollow lanterns. With a final effort, she was pulled through, or spat out by the Rift, and tumbled several feet along the road before finally coming to a stop. At this cue, the Rift snapped back in on itself, a final few strands of energy listlessly evaporating into the night air, and the sky was silent. If it wasn't for the body lying in the middle of the road, no-one would have suspected a trans-space/time wormhole had just opened in the middle of the city.

"All the openings have closed. We're ok." Ianto said.. the other two had their guns pointed at the body still lying on the tarmac.

An arm moved. Then the other, Slowly, the woman pushed herself up onto her knees. head still bowed.

"Hey!" Jack shouted. "You ok there?" She looked up at him, moving her hair out of her eyes so she could see who was yelling at her. Jack's aim immediately faltered, his face registering shock, then he lowered his gun.

"Stella?" he asked.

Hearing her name must have snapped the girl out of whatever trance she was in. Her eyes widened and, ignoring the people infront of her, whipped round to face where, moments before, the Rift had been, and the team could see blood running from a clotted mass in her hair down her neck.

"No, no, no, no, NO!" she cried, stumbling to her knees, and frantically pressing buttons on a wriststrap she wore, but whatever she was doing was to no avail; the Rift remained shut. Jack ran forwards and grabbed her by the arms, turning her to face him, but she was looking right through him, hardly noting his existence.

"Stella, what happened? Where are the others?" he demanded. Stella stared at him, watery blood running from her nose and her ears, her face grey and her eyes sunken.

"I've got to go back," she croaked, her head lolling back.

"Stella!" Jack repeated, more angrily. "Come on, speak to me!" Then she grabbed his jacket.

"Don't let me fall asleep, Jack, I'll forget it all; I'll forget them. Please-" but it was too late. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she fell to the floor, unconscious.


	3. Alone

Alone

Gwen walked into the exam room where the Jack was leaning against the rails, watching Ianto making adjustments to the drip in Stella's arm, checking the readings that were coming from the equipment.

"I've said it before, Ianto, and I'll say it again; You're a man of many talents," Jack told him. Ianto smiled in response. Gwen changed the subject.

"Are you sure we sholdn't take her to the hospital?" she asked Jack. He gave her a look, but Ianto answered for him.

"She's alright, apart from the blood loss and dehydration. And then there's the blood test-"

"Yeah, how's that coming along?" Jack asked.

"It'll be done in a minute."

"So who is she, Jack?" Gwen asked. "When I first met you, you said Torchwood Four was missing."

"They were," Jack told her. "Torchwood Four's last mission was to go through the Rift; to inform Torchwood London about what dangers that the empire might face. It's been the basis of dozens of missions over the years, and all of them failed. No-one had ever come back, until now. A few nights before they were due to leave, they were running simulations, checking figures, when they ... just ... disappeared. No warning, nothing. We informed London, were told to keep a watch out for them, and that's what we've done. They were the last to go through the Rift. Not long after we had the Battle of Canary Wharf, and most of the computer records for Torchwood Four were wiped. So perhaps now we'll be able to find out what happened."

"I don't know about that, Jack," Ianto said ruefully from below. The other two both looked at him, frowning. He held aloft a sheet of paper, with blood results printed on it. "I doubt she'll even be able to remember past her tenth birthday, _if _she even wakes up. There's massive amounts of retcon in her bloodstream. She should be dead."

"But she's not," Jack said, confused.

"Why would someone want to wipe her memory?" Gwen wondered.

" ' I'll forget them '," Ianto said, reciting Stella's last words.

A thousand possibilities ran through all of their heads, as they stood in silence, looking at each other, then all started as Stella took a deep breath on the table, opening her eyes in shock.

"What the ... where ... why am I in here?" Stella said, then looked at Ianto standing next to her. "Who the hell are you?"

"I ... " Ianto began. Jack ran down the steps to her side, as Stella began to sit-up on the table.

"Jack, what the hell is going on? Why am I in the Hub? And who are they?" She said, as Gwen joined the other two, then winced and held her hand to the back of her skull where she had been injured.

"Take it easy," Jack told her gently. She eased back on the table, looking warily at the other two standing either side of Jack.

"Jack, why am I in the Hub; what's happened?" Stella asked again. Jack glanced at Gwen. It didn't look good.

"Stella, what's the last thing you remember?"

"I ... " She frowned, trying to remember, then it clicked, and her face brightened, and she grabbed Jack by the arms. "Jack, we did it, we got through the Rift, but...we didn't mean to. I'm not sure what happened. We were running a simulation for the real thing and then the Rift opened infront of us, and we were pulled through. We did it!" she laughed. "A new world, Jack, we were actually on a different planet! We survived. But ... " Her smile faltered. "I can't remember anything else. I ... woke up here. Why can't I remember any more?What happened to me, Jack, where are the others?"

Jack sighed.

"You don't remember coming through the Rift last night?"

"I came back; why?"

"We don't know, but you've been gone for over 3 years, Stella."

Stella stared in shock, hardly able to comprehend what he was telling her, but knowing, deep down, that it must be true, because Jack would never lie to her.


	4. Due

Due

"So much for discovering what happened to her, then," Ianto said ruefully, approaching Jack who was standing in front of one of the computer terminals.

It had been a while since Stella had woken-up, she had been moved to the interrogation room, and Jack had been watching her ever since. He continued to stare as Ianto spoke; saying nothing himself, but accepted the cup of coffee he was offered.

"Still, at least she knows who she is. That's something, isn't it?" Ianto prompted. Jack looked at him.

"Yeah," he replied bluntly. "I suppose it is. It doesn't help us much, though. Keep a look-out for anything unusual in the area; perhaps more of the team came through one of the other Rift openings, under the radar."

"You don't trust her?"

"No, I trust her, as much as I trust you and Gwen. If we just knew why her memory's been wiped for almost the entire 3 years she's been away."

"Maybe she did it to herself?" Ianto thought out loud. Jack turned to look at him and frowned, then looked back at the computer screen, thinking.

"Do you want some coffee?"

Stella looked up in the direction that the voice was coming from, and met the smiling face of the dark-haired woman she had seen when she had woken.

"Oh, um...thanks..."

"Gwen," she prompted, walking down the steps into the interrogation room, a mug of coffee in each hand. "Jack said you took milk, no sugar, right?" she asked.

"He remembered," Stella replied, taking the coffee from Gwen, who sat down opposite her. They each drank their coffee in silence for a while, smiling at each other awkwardly.

"Good coffee," Stella said.

"Ianto's special Torchwood blend; it's a closely guarded secret," Gwen told her jokingly. Stella smiled, but then frowned, and set her mug down on the table in front of her.

"Are you ok?" Gwen asked.

"Torchwood Four...my_ friends_ are dead, and I can't remember them. I've lost the last 3 years of my life, the Institute has been destroyed; I have nothing to come back to. The world has moved on and I've been left behind with nothing to look back on and nothing to drive me forwards."

Gwen put her hand across the table.

"You'll remember, I'm sure you will," she told her warmly. "I've been retconned and _my_ memory came back. All it takes is one specific image or person or whatever to trigger it, and _you're_ clever enough to do it. Jack has faith in you."

Stella glanced up at her.

"You've read my file."

"I ..." Gwen began, but was interrupted by Stella.

"I'm not accusing; it's what I would do," she told her. "After all, you know nothing about me." Gwen smiled, though she couldn't help thinking Stella had meant more by that. Stella seemed to have an unknowable face, the type where it was difficult to gauge what someone could be thinking, or feeling. Useful for interrogating people, _not _useful when _you _were trying to interrogate _them. _

Gwen was interrupted in her study of Stella by the sound of footsteps descending the stairs to her right. She looked up to see Jack had finally made an appearance. Gwen got up, letting the Captain use her chair, and made an excuse about reports that needed writing-up as she left.

Jack sat without speaking, opposite Stella. She watched him sit, leant back in her chair, picking absent-mindedly at a scratch on her hand, and then spoke.

"You thought I was dead," she told him.

"Standard procedure," Jack told her simply. "Six months, and any missing or unaccounted-for Torchwood personnel are automatically listed as deceased."

"I know what 'standard procedure' is, Jack, and that wasn't what I meant. _You_ thought I was dead. Didn't you?"

"I told you, you shouldn't have gone through the Rift, it wasn't _safe._ No-one ever came back alive before you."

"You didn't want me here. I was working under orders from the Institute – you weren't my commanding officer, Jack, and you..." She cut off quickly, not wanting to bring-up old arguments that had never led anywhere the first time. Collecting herself, she looked back at the Captain. "You could have had hope," Stella finished simply, unable to look at him. She was alone in the world, Jack knew. Torchwood Three was all she had left now. He could see - he knew - all the pain behind those eyes that no-one her age should have to bear, and knowing that everyone on this side of the Rift had given up on her and the rest of her team and thought her dead and gone these past few years only added to it. It dug into his soul to see it, though on the surface he let nothing slip; kept the cool, calm aura about him so Stella wouldn't see it in his own eyes.

"Jack," Ianto appeared at the top of the stairs, papers in his hand. "We're picking up reports of a 'strange creature' just outside Cardiff. It corresponds with one of those Rift openings."

"Dead, alive?"

Ianto shook his head.

"The reports don't say."

"Right, Gwen, you're with me," Jack said, rising from the table. Stella looked up at him expectantly, but Jack shook his head.

"Before you ask; no, you can't come. No 'buts'," he added, seeing that she was about to protest. Once he walked out of the interrogation room, he called Ianto over to him.

"I want you to reinstate Stella," he told him. A flicker crossed Ianto's face.

"You trust her?"

"Are you questioning my judgement?" Jack bounced back, but said it with a grin on his face to show he wasn't angry, then continued. "I don't think she's got anything to hide. Reinstate her; find her somewhere she can live; sort her accounts out. The usual. She's got 3 years of back-pay due..." he finished, following Gwen out to the SUV.

Stella sat where she had been left, her cup of coffee growing cold in front of her, feeling simultaneously helpless and fuming at Jack.

A noise caught her attention and she looked up. It was Ianto.

"Fancy a trip?"


	5. Arrival & Boxes

Arrival

The creature stumbled through the opening in time and space, the gilded light and blue sparks illuminating the night sky and dark fields near Pen-y-rhiw, on the outer limits of the Rift. The thing that stumbled through was not of this world. If there had been people of a superstitious nature there to witness this strange event, they might look at the animal and call it a werewolf, but it wasn't.

The sheep, who had a few minutes ago been grazing peacefully in the field, thought it enough of a threat to run to the opposite end of their enclosure, baaing and crowding together, but food was the last thing on the creature's mind; it was dying. As it opened its mouth and let out something between a growl and a groan, the long, heavy jaws dripped black mucus in pools on the grass. It moved slowly away from the Rift, emaciated limbs with skin that sagged dragged it across the grass as the last of its life ebbed away. A blackness saturated its fur, clogging it - _inhabiting_ it. As the wolf-like alien drew its last breaths in this alien atmosphere, this alien _time, _the blackness began to retract; condensed into something between gas and liquid and disappeared from the host body, evaporating into the night until all that was left was a desiccated carcass on the grass.

The Rift opening which had all the while illuminated this strange scene in the Welsh fields let out a few more sparks of blue-grey energy and collapsed back in on itself, plunging the scene into darkness once more. The sheep remaining in their little corner of the field, confused. Their noise would eventually call the farmer from his bed in fears of dogs or foxes worrying his flock.

When he arrived he found the body of the strange creature, dead and harmless. The thing that had inhabited it had long since gone; waiting for the moment when it would be called.

Boxes

Ianto Jones parked the spare car next to the garages Torchwood owned where, approximately 3 years earlier, Torchwood had stored all of Stella's belongings, amongst the others whose property they were 'looking after' for the foreseeable future. Getting out of the car, Stella walked over to the garage and waited for Ianto to follow, absent-mindedly looking about her at the sunny Cardiff day and the new world she had returned to. Pulling a set of seemingly identical-looking keys from his pocket, Ianto selected one, crouched down and unlocked the door, pulling up the corrugated metal to reveal the life of Stella Malone, packed away in boxes stamped with the Torchwood logo in black ink. He stayed standing a little way back, letting Stella step inside and go through her own belongings. She did so in silence, half-looking through papers and belongings that to her Retconned mind had been neatly arranged in her flat only days before, and were now covered with years-worth of dust. It wasn't much in total, but it was hers. She felt a sense of insignificance; the ephemeral nature of her existence suddenly overcoming her like that day, years ago – before she joined Torchwood – when she had suddenly realised that there was life in this universe other than that on Earth.

_She had found a piece of alien weaponry that had drifted through the Rift in a field not far from her home when she was nine years old. Holding the cool, black metal that somehow shimmered as she held it in her palms – unlike anything she had seen or felt before – she had felt her heart rushing into her mouth; that 'butterfly' feeling in her stomach that just wouldn't settle, that feeling that she had only just become used to – of knowing something she couldn't possibly, or rationally, know. This, whatever it was, was not from Earth, and humans were not the only things in the cold vastness of space, haplessly floating; suspended; falling on a small blue dot._

"You might want these."

Stella was awoken from her daydream by Ianto's voice behind her. He was holding out what looked like her driving licence, her passport, as well as other various important-looking documents. She took them from his outstretched hand wordlessly, and leafed through them.

"We can't take everything now; just the essentials, clothes and ... things like that," he finished.

"Yeah, sorry, I won't be long," she told him, and turned back to the box she had been looking through. She picked up a bag and stuffing a few clothes into it from the box, then glanced back at Ianto who was standing in the doorway again, still and silent, the sunshine and dust glowing round him.

"You worked at the Institute in London, didn't you?" she asked.

"Er, yes. How did you know?" Ianto asked. Stella smiled ruefully.

"You don't remember me – why would you? I saw you there once ... a couple of times." They stayed silent for a few minutes more.

"So-" she began. Ianto looked up at her and Stella smiled inquisitively. "... you and Jack?" Ianto looked somewhat startled. "Oh, I've embarrassed you; I'm sorry. I just ... notice things, sometimes," she explained.

"No," Ianto recovered, "you're ... you're right. It's not a secret."

"Has it been going on for long?" Ianto flinched a little internally at being worked-out by this stranger so quickly.

"Not long, I suppose." Stella nodded and turned back to her box of clothes.

"So you're ...?" she shrugged. He looked back at her.

"Oh, no, I ..." He paused, uncertain whether to tell her or not, but met her dark blue eyes and they seemed ... sad? There was something genuine there – a sincerity about her – and he found himself telling her. "I had this girlfriend, Lisa, when I worked atLondon_._ We were so happy and then ... We were attacked, and I tried to save her. I brought her here to try and help her, but she died, and Jack ... Jack was there for me." He couldn't look at her. He wouldn't be able to control himself if he did. After a few moments he noticed a hand on top of his. Stella had walked over and taken Ianto's hand in hers.

"I'm sorry." She held his hand a moment longer before suddenly letting go and turning to pick up the things she was taking with her and walking out into the sunshine towards the car. As she passed Ianto again she told him,

"Jack's good at that – saving people. He'll find you when you're at rock-bottom, pull you up, then put you back together and make you stronger."


End file.
